crudity which will shock visitors fresh from the Baptistery doors at
Florence. As in most Venetian sculpture symbolism plays an important
part, and one is not always able to translate it. Here are arches within
arches: one of scriptural incidents--at any rate Adam and Eve and Cain
and Abel are identifiable; one of grotesques and animals; one of uncouth
toilers--a shepherd and woodman and so forth--with God the Father on the
keystone. What these mean beyond the broad fact that religion is for
all, I cannot say. Angels are above, and surmounting the doorway is
Christ. Among all this dark stonework one is conscious now and then of
little pink touches which examination shows to be the feet of reposing
pigeons.

Above is the parapet with the four famous golden horses in the midst;
above them in the architrave over the central recess is S. Mark's lion
with the open book against a background of starred blue. Then angels
mounting to Christ, and on each side pinnacled saints. It is all rather
barbaric, very much of a medley, and unforgettable in its total effect.

Two mysteries the façade holds for me. One is the black space behind the
horses, which seems so cowardly an evasion of responsibility on the part
of artists and architects for many years, as it was there when Gentile
Bellini painted his Santa Croce miracle; and the other is the identity
of the two little grotesque figures with a jug, one towards each end of
the parapet over the door. No book tells me who they are, and no
Venetian seems to know. They do not appear to be scriptural; yet why
should they be when the Labours of Hercules are illustrated in sculpture
on the façade above them?


[Illustration: S. MARK'S FROM THE PIAZZA, THE MERCERIA CLOCK ON THE